Where a shaman meets the Great Tiger

Siberian Tiger

Thanks to Gianni Vacca, I discovered an amazing video about the friendship between a goat and a tiger. It probably actually shows a shaman in goat form (certainly his Animal-Mother) negotiating with Bar, the Great Tiger Protector Spirit.


Enjoy !

How Much, How Big ?

Horses (from the blog les-verts-tacots)

This is a question which arises in many situations during a game, and many settings propose guidelines or even price lists. But in an economy based on exchange, it is difficult to set any price list, and in an oral culture, accounting documents are missing. We are therefore obliged to extrapolate from reports written by foreign visitors. The following guidelines try to give a comprehensive estimate of numbers to be found among nomads, either for exchange or to estimate the size of an encounter. I based these numbers on reports from visitors or on the amount of beasts sold every year at the town market in Bukhara.

The following numbers are very rough, may vary widely and are only given as guidelines to create an encounter or as background elements for player characters.

Size of a camp

The camp of an important Bey can be as small as 50 yurts, split in groups of 3-6 yurts, each one housing a family. Such a camp would have 5-6000 heads of sheep and 3-600 horses. Goats, cows and camels are less numerous. The usual ratio between animals could be the following:

10-20 heads of sheep / horse

50-100 heads of sheep / goat

1 cow / 10 horses

1 camel / 5 to 20 horses (depending on the area)

An average family consisting in 6 members is expected to have 4 yurts and take care of 40 horses, 400-head flock of sheep, a few goats, 4 cows or yaks and 4 camels. In desert areas, increase the proportion of camels. Since camels and cows have a similar usage, it is possible that an isolated family lacks one of them.

Costs of goods

These can widely vary according to variety, scarcity or quality. The BRP rule using item value levels instead of money is therefore well suited to this setting. One can use sheep as kind of reference, if not as currency.

Cheap items are supposed to be made by the Nomads themselves.

One sheep is an “inexpensive” item.

An average item like an average horse costs about 10 inexpensive ones (sheep).

An expensive item “costs” at least 10 horses or 100 heads of sheep. For example camel, slave, metal armour, high quality silk dress, or wolf fur coats. Of course, there is no price limit to expensive goods.

A Crowd-Funded Revolution

As I mentioned in a comment of the previous post, Alephtar Games, the editor of Wind on the Steppes as well as other excellent historical fantasy settings, started a crowd-funding project to develop its own OGL rules, called Revolution D100. This project deserves very well the term “crowd”, since it will not only be OGL, but involve all the backers in the play-testing. The publication is scheduled for Spring 2016, together with first supplements about medieval England, Mecha anime and perhaps a Multivers. I strongly encourage you to have a look at it and to read the “news” where the concept is explained in details.

After this first wave of publications, it shall be the turn of WotS. It requires of course a lot of work to adapt WotS to the news rules, provided they have first been publicated, so it’s too soon to take any commitment on the time it will be available again. It will stay a D100-based system and will be the chance to correct and improve the first edition of WotS.

So if you missed the first edition of Wind on the Steppes and are still interested in it, keep your eyes wide open.

Wind on the Steppes (provisory?) not on sale anymore

As some of yours may already have read somewhere else, the collaboration between Alephtar Games (the editor of Wind on the Steppes) and Chaosium (the owner of the BRP-engine license) has been terminated. As a consequence, the book is not on sale any more neither at Alephtar games nor at Chaosium. It is a pitty, moreover when you consider that Wind on the Steppes has been released a few months ago only and did not get its chance to reach its full public.

I'm not sure about the future of WotS, but I'll do my best for it to be available again in any form, so keep an eye on it. I however don't know today how and when, or even if I'll manage to.

Nevertheless, I'll keep going feeding this blog. If you have any question, contact me using the contact form.


Edit 23.09.2015 : it looks like WotS will probably get a second life, indeed. Praised be Mayin, the Guide of the Dead's Souls ! But it will take time, so you'll have to be patient.

The Mongol Derby



Participants of the 2015 edition (Mongolderby on Facebook)

The Mongol Derby is reputedly the longest and toughest horse race in the world: 1000 km on half-wild Mongolian horses, 12 days long. Its aim is to experience the life of the messengers of the Mongol Empire, riding discontinuously for days, changing horses at the next nomad camp every 40km. It is only for tough experienced riders: accidents are common and hospitals are hundreds of km away. Not speaking about being lost in the immensity. So any participant must know the serious hazards he will be confronted to.

The 2015 Edition is currently beeing ran. Today shall be the 6th day, so it is the right time to write this post. You can follow the race in -almost- real time on Facebook.

Or on the web site theadventurists.com

I would not recommend to take part to this race if you're the kind of adventurer sitting at a table and rolling dice, but instead to watch a movie made in 2013 “All The Wild Horses”. It is a documentary about the race, which the director ran twice. I still haven’t seen it but there are some trailers on the web page.

Enjoy the race !

Inventory Sale at Chaosium

Chaosium have just announced a big sale through their web-site. With the change in management, they have decided to concentrate on their in-house core lines and are thus selling their non-Chaosium stock.
The Celestial Empire and Wind on the Steppes are amongst the books on sale, as well as other Alephtar Games stuff, so make sure you grab your copy— here !
(NB: the 50% reduction is applied to the cart upon checking out) 

(N.B. This post is a shameles but authorized copy of Gianni's blog. I was too lazy to write my own text)